Simon Pegg recently wrote a great review of the new british zombie mini-series Dead Set. In the review, he makes a well spoken argument (that I totally agree with) about the negative impact the "fast zombie" has had on the genre of zombie films in general.
I know it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist, but this genuinely irks me. You cannot kill a vampire with an MDF stake; werewolves can't fly; zombies do not run. It's a misconception, a bastardisation that diminishes a classic movie monster. The best phantasmagoria uses reality to render the inconceivable conceivable. The speedy zombie seems implausible to me, even within the fantastic realm it inhabits. A biological agent, I'll buy. Some sort of super-virus? Sure, why not. But death? Death is a disability, not a superpower. It's hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all.
More significantly, the fast zombie is bereft of poetic subtlety. As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.
He makes a number of excellent points in the article. It really is a good read.
On a side note, I'l like to kick in my two cents here with something that's bothering me about modern zombie movies. I've always seen a proper zombie movie as one where the zombie invasion is only a background for the real story that's going on. It's a setting, nothing more. The best zombie films have always been about the living characters involved. Zombie films should be about human interactions under extremely stressful conditions. The world is overrun by hordes of undead, a small band of survivors are all that is left. How do they deal with the stress of living in a zombie filled world? Do they go crazy? Do they have to sacrifice their morals to survive? What do they do?
It seems to me that a lot of zombie films lately are more about the zombies. It's all about the blood and guts and the gore. It's all wanton killing with no real purpose. The newer films are so chalk full of action scenes, there doesn't seem to be enough time left over to develop the characters or their relationships. This is especially true in the era of the fast zombie. Nowadays there are zombies coming at you from every direction at super fast speeds. There's no time for the characters to even think, let alone interact and develop a relationship. Plots are drug along by a shoe string, and stories are filled with just enough characters to offer us plenty of zombie victims along the way. No care seems to be given to who those characters are.
Shaun of the Dead was such a great film because it took the time to develop the characters before the zombies started popping out of the woodwork. By the time the blood started flowing in massive amounts, you actually cared what happened to Shaun and Ed and Liz. What other zombie films in recent memory can you think of where you gave two shits about the characters, where there was real dramatic tension? I can't seem to think of any.
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